Carlisle 86: "Spinoza thought that when you fully perceive something, you become one with it, you embody it"
This is how, for Spinoza, Christ can be said to be a manifestation of "God's Wisdom, [which] assumed a human nature in Christ"
"Spinoza was willing to acknowledge Christ's distinctiveness" but insisted "that this was a matter of degree, not a difference in essence or in kind"
in other words, "there may be differences between Christ and other human beings, [but] there is no ontological division between them -- nor between humans and any other beings" (87)